Brain chemistry, hardware, tag
The boy was supposed to spend the night with me on Friday night, but he didn’t. I was feeling spacy, jittery, and very axious.
The boy was supposed to spend the night with me on Saturday night, but he didn’t. I was feeling spacy, less jittery and anxious.
The new pills work on another part of my neurotransmitters. It wasn’t until today that I’ve felt anywhere near normal – just a little spacy. I have an image of my brain sloshing around in a warm bath of seratonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. At first it wasn’t sure what was going on. Then my brain panicked and tried to get out of the tub. And now it finally seems to have settled back into the bath. I’m just waiting for it to say “Ahhhhh.”
So far, the only good thing about the new pills is that my appetite seems to have largely disappeared. That’s a new and very strange feeling for me. I know when I’m hungry because I feel it in my stomach, but I don’t have a sense of wanting to eat. It that turns out to be a temporary side effect, I’ll be very disappointed.
I still have trouble concentrating and my short term memory is… I forgot what I was going to say there.
The boy did spend the day with me today.
Right after we left his mother’s house, we went to Home Depot for a few things I needed. I asked one of the guys working there where the screws were. He held up a small device that looked like a razor against his neck and when he spoke, he sounded like a robot. He told me to follow him.
As we walked behind him, the boy asked me, “Why does he talk like that?”
I explained that the man had had his voice box removed and that the machine made the vibrations for him. The man stopped, turned around, and looked at the boy.
“Never, ever smoke,” he said. “This is what can happen if you smoke. Don’t ever smoke.”
He found what we were looking for, and as we were looking at screwdrives, I asked the boy, “Are you still thinking about that man?”
“Yes,” he said.
I said a long “aaaaaaahh” and had him touch my throat.
“You feel the vibrations? Those are my vocal chords vibrating. He doesn’t have any, so the machine vibrates for him.”
“Oh! It makes the sound,” the boy said.
I’ve always tried to be matter of fact with him whenever we see someone different. I don’t say “Don’t look” or “Don’t stare,” I just tell him what he’s looking at. It works most of the time. But sometimes, I can’t really explain it to him.
When I took him the the Square a few weeks ago, he noticed that there were a lot of people asking for money. Sometimes I give money.
When we went to the Museum of Science, he looked at the panhandlers that stake out the exit of the Mass Pike. He asked me why they do that.
“They don’t have jobs, I guess.”
“But why are most of them black?” he asked.
I’d rather have the “where do babies come from” discussion with him.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
After Home Depot we came back to my house, replaced and outlet, and played spaceship. The best part about playing spaceship for me is that I get to lie down on his bed. He starts off lying down, but in a few seconds he’s bouncing all over his room.
Lunch in the cafe. I’m trying to get the counter servers to remember us. When our order was up, they called out “Lasagna!” I went to get it, and said, “Next time you can call me Philip.” We’ll see how that works.
In all the years we lived in that house, none of the cafe workers remembered our orders or our names.
He didn’t want to get an ice cream right away. He wanted to climb the trees in the town green. They had trimmed his favorite tree, and that disappointed him. Then he tried to get me to play tag.
I hate playing tag. I am so out of shape that playing tag qualifies as strenuous exercise for me.
But what the hell.
We started chasing each other and playing. A boy and his sister watched us. I invited them to play with us. Their mother said, “Go ahead. Play tag,” but they were shy. So she and her husband got up and played tag with us. It must have been something to see: three adults and three kids playing tag on the town green on an Sunday afternoon. Norman Rockwell couldn’t have painted better.
You know what?
Little kids can run fast. And if you run after them they squeal and laugh.